


The Watcher (working title)

by Graf_Edric



Category: Dracula & Related Fandoms, Dracula - Bram Stoker, Nosferatu (1921), Nosferatu (1979)
Genre: F/M, Horror, Transylvania, Victorian, quinlan - Freeform, strigoi, vampire
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 12:20:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5163644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Graf_Edric/pseuds/Graf_Edric
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a desolate forest situated in the Kingdom of Hungary, an American botanist and his small family take up residence in a Medieval cottage, miles from the nearest village, where the professor hopes to add to his knowledge of exotic plants. His daughter soon becomes convinced that they are not alone. Something else is out there, watching...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Germany - Spring 1876

 

 

          Mary began packing her things only two days before her family was due to depart. Her mother had insisted she start much earlier, but Mary didn’t exactly relish the idea of having to wear the same dress for two weeks straight, and she wanted to keep her art supplies close at hand, in case she ran out of other things to do. That sort of situation had arisen rather often while they were residing in Germany because the plants her father wanted to study happened to thrive in the middle of nowhere, as usual. The nearest village was almost five miles through the deep woods in this case, and the _‘Straße’_ they had to follow to get there consisted of two barely detectible carriage tracks winding along between dense stands of massive trees. And now they were headed for some obscure corner of the Kingdom of Hungary, which she strongly suspected would be even worse.

          She brought a sketchpad and some pencils onto the train, and drew pictures of various boys she’d met: a cute neighbor she’d known back home in Boston; that adorable first-year student she’d befriended at Oxford last year; a tall, lanky actor-in-training from Berlin… If only she’d had time to get to know one of them as more than a casual acquaintance….

Mary lamented having been born the daughter of Professor Arthur P. Johnston, the purportedly renowned American botanist, and his wife Elizabeth, an amateur linguist-historian who always insisted upon taking her along on these insane expeditions. Her parents liked to carry on about how fortunate she was to be able to see the world and that sort of thing, but Mary only longed to be allowed to stay in one place long enough to make some friends; to be able to be at least somewhat normal. At sixteen, she had lived in more places by far than most people were able to even visit in an entire lifetime. It was getting rather tiresome. She didn’t aim to be ungrateful. It just seemed like no matter what exotic location her father decided on, it always involved residing in some creaking, moldy shack in the same sort of dark, damp, desolate setting. Why couldn’t he find something worth studying on a nice, warm tropical island for once?

          Mary had adapted to her solitary existence by becoming an avid daydreamer as well as an accomplished artist. Her imagination was unusually vivid, even for a young girl. Throughout her childhood, she had almost always been perfectly content wandering about in the woods, creating alternate realms in her imagination and acting out all manner of wild storylines all by herself. As she began to mature, however, she found herself longing for real, likeminded companionship. Having lived such an uncommon life thus far, she had trouble connecting with ordinary teenagers. They often thought her rather bizarre and were likely to ostracize her for her childlike innocence. Her diminutive stature and candid manner of speaking caused many of her peers to presume that she was younger than she actually was. Mary frequently wondered if she would ever meet anyone with enough depth of personality – or perhaps simply the tolerance -- to look beyond her eccentricities.

          The rhythmic sound and motion of the train made her drowsy, but she wasn’t able to actually fall asleep, no matter how much she wanted to. Her mind was restless. When it became too dark to draw, she gazed out the window at the shadowy, alien landscape rolling by. The bushes and trees could have just as easily been jagged Martian rocks or giant, lumbering creatures in the darkness.

          At some point, she must have finally drifted off, because the next thing she was aware of was the sound of the train screeching to a stop at the next station. It was almost daylight, and the landscape was rockier than it had been when she’d last seen it.

          Her mother was still asleep; her long, auburn hair pulled into a neat bun on top of her head, and Professor Johnston was busily scribbling in one of his many notebooks. She wanted to ask him when they’d finally be at their destination, but she knew he’d just be annoyed and give her a sarcastically nonsensical answer such as, “We’ll be there when we get there,” or something equally absurd. Sighing, she rolled her head from side to side, trying to alleviate the stiffness in her neck.

          As the locomotive picked up steam once again, Mary returned to her drawing. Every so often, she stopped and watched the scenery moving by. The terrain was becoming more mountainous by the hour. It remained that way throughout the rest of the day and into the night.

          Mary got up and stretched her legs, barely able to contain the urge to sprint from one end of the car to the other out of an aching desperation to burn some pent-up energy. It was likely morning by now, maybe an hour or so before the earliest signs of sunrise. Just as she was turning to head back to her seat, the train slowed abruptly, nearly throwing her headlong onto the floor. She caught herself on the back of her father’s seat, rousing him from a deep sleep. “What’re you doing?” he asked, his deep-set blue eyes squinting up at her from under straight, untidy grey brows, his voice breaking with sleepiness.

          “Sorry… Um, looks like we’re stopping…” she smiled sheepishly.

          Her father looked perturbed. “How many times have we stopped since I’ve been sleeping?” He felt around in his bag and pulled out a train schedule as the porter announced the stop.

          “Um, twice? …I think…”

          Prof. Johnston fumbled with his spectacles, trying to take a look at the schedule. He was too sleepy, and couldn’t seem to get them on his face properly. The porter announced the name of the town again.

          “This is our stop,” Mary’s father blurted out, sounding slightly panicked. He reached over and shook her mother’s shoulder. “Bess! Wake up, dear. This is our stop!”

          The three of them quickly gathered up their luggage and stepped off the train onto the planks of a dark, deserted platform. Two porters unloaded the larger items -- two large oak chests, several wooden crates, and her mother’s prized antique writing desk -- onto the platform. No one else disembarked at the stop, and sooner than Mary would have liked, the train slowly gathered steam and chugged off until it was completely enveloped by an inky blackness that pressed in on all sides of the platform. The station appeared uninhabited. A solitary lantern illuminated a small portion of the planking near the rickety bench where Mary and her parents waited, a tiny island of flickering yellow light adrift in an impenetrable sea of darkness. The damp, cold air felt heavy on Mary’s exposed hands and face. Feelings of vulnerability and anxiousness welled up inside her. How long would they have to stay here in the dark before their stagecoach arrived? What if whoever it was had forgotten about picking them up in the first place? They all sat silently on the timeworn wooden bench, Mary alone at one end, her parents side by side at the other. She set her luggage in the empty space between.

          Unseen creatures rustled the trees and underbrush around them. Strange squeaks and croaks mingled with the familiar chirping of crickets. Tiny, black flying things kept swooping in and out of the trees. Their careening, irregular movements led Mary to conclude that they were not birds or insects. _Bats._ That’s what they were. She knew they often carried rabies. Hopefully they’d stay on the other side of the tracks. Far off in the distance, she could hear the unmistakable sound of wolves howling. She fought a heart-pounding sensation of panic. She’d always found that sound especially disquieting. As a young child, she had been plagued by nightmares about being chased and attacked by wolves. Ostensibly, no real event had precipitated the dreams; they seemed to have appeared randomly, but they had been terrifying nonetheless. She did not relish the idea that she and her parents were sitting at a desolate train station in the middle of a dark, creepy Hungarian forest, with nothing to protect them from whatever was slavering and stalking around out there.

          “When will the coach arrive?” She finally asked, unable to stand not knowing for another minute.

          “Supposedly at sunrise,” her father replied, sitting back and folding his arms over his tall, generously proportioned frame in repose. He seemed to be purposefully overstating his contentedness.

          Mary sighed. “I really don’t like this,” she gestured at their surroundings.

          “Yes, I know. I hear the wolves,” he said dryly, pronouncing every single letter of the last word. His voice contained a vague suggestion of derision, and Mary picked up on it instantly. He found her fear of them ridiculous, she knew. Her father prided himself on his bravery and had never been able to tolerate or understand anyone else fearing anything at all, especially his own flesh and blood. She wished she hadn’t said anything.

          Trying to distract her mind from the perceived dangers around them, she propped her chin on her hands, her elbows on her knees, and stared down at the time-blackened wooden planks under her feet. There were scratches and scuffs all over the toecaps of her black and white high button shoes. For having trekked through the woods of Germany as many times as she had whilst wearing them, they were in surprisingly good shape. She tapped her toes together rhythmically. She tried to ignore the scurrying and darting among the trees, the chilling peal of the wolves’ howling, and the intensely dark night around them.

          As they sat in silence, she became increasingly aware of a very distinct, haunting malevolence that seemed to lie in wait somewhere nearby. She was certain it wasn’t just the possible threat of violence from the wolves, or the general creepiness of the bats -- there was a stark, defined vividness to the to the feeling. It was like nothing she’d ever experienced before. Anytime she stared too long into the slivers of solid blackness between the trees on the other side of the tracks, she was overtaken by a sensation of abject terror so compelling that she was forced to look away. There was no physical explanation for it, but she felt it just as intensely as if she was able to make out a pack of wolves poised to rip her to shreds. She just couldn’t shake the feeling that _something_ out there was watching them as if appraising their potential as a meal, and she was afraid that if she gazed into the darkness for too long, she’d be able to see it staring back.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

          After an agonizing half-hour or so, the first vague hint of an impending sunrise became visible beyond the trees. The sky slowly faded from the color of India ink to a yellow-gray haze. Among the trees across the tracks, the shadows became less opaque, and birds hopping about and twittering innocuously replaced the sounds of the more mysterious night dwellers. Unconsciously, Mary relaxed and only then she felt the stiffness and aching in her muscles as a result of the extended period of tension beforehand.

          Another hour or more crept slowly by before the carriage finally appeared to take them to their new home, wherever it might be. The young, dark-haired driver helped Mary’s father load their belongings onto the roof of the carriage before they headed off down a dirt road. Small, ancient looking stone cottages were scattered in clusters along the road, and outside of the villages, inquisitive locals peered out their windows at the carriage as it rolled past.

          As usual, their destination would not be found inside the limits of the small hamlets through which they were traveling. The hoof beats of the two stocky horses pulling the carriage continued on uninterrupted as the last few houses grew smaller and smaller in the oval formed by the back window. Soon, the forest began to close in around them, leaving only cascading, dust-flecked pillars of sunlight that flashed over them intermittently. Mary sighed in resignation as they bounced over the increasingly rough trail, wondering if they’d become stuck in the mud again as they had when they’d been traveling to their isolated little cabin in Germany.

          At one point, the driver actually slowed to a stop because apparently, he wasn’t sure which way to go anymore. Prof. Johnston produced a map and climbed up onto the dickey box beside him, pointing the way and trying to explain it in spite of the fact that neither of them spoke a word of the other’s native language. This went on for at least an hour.

          When the carriage began to slow once again, Mary assumed they’d finally reached their destination. Then she heard her father protesting loudly, “But we aren’t _there_ yet! We hired you to take us all the way in!” The driver argued back in his native tongue, holding his hands up defensively. He got down and it appeared he was preparing to unload their possessions right there on the side of the beaten track. Prof. Johnston begged him to continue on toward their cabin. An edge of desperation apparent in his voice as well, the driver pointed emphatically up the path and cried, _“Diavolul traieste aici!”_

Mary’s father shook his head in confusion.

 _“Monstrul! Spiritele rele!”_ The driver was becoming frantic.

          “ _What?_ Can’t you at least take us to the end of the road? The trail is fine, it’s _fine_ , there’s no mud or anything. What’s the problem?” her father demanded.

          _“Raul!”_ the driver kept insisting. His voice ascending into a shrill wail, he added with great emphasis, _“La dracu!_ _Necuratul!_ _”_

          The argument continued for another few minutes. Mary and her mother looked on with apprehension. Finally, Mary’s father pulled a wad of bills from the inner breast pocket of his black frockcoat and held it up, shaking it vehemently. “You see this? Either you take us to the end of the road, or _no money! No money for you!_ Do you understand? You fulfill your obligation or you get _no money!”_

          The frazzled driver heaved a defeated sigh and muttered under his breath. He looked down and exhaled, biting his lower lip, crossed himself, and then climbed back into his seat. He crossed himself again and picked up the reins, a look of pronounced trepidation upon his face.

          “What’s going on?” Mary asked her mother, wondering what the driver was so worried about. “Do you know what he was talking about? It sounded like he was saying there’s something bad up there.”

          Unlike her husband, Bess Johnston always had the presence of mind to do a bit of research on the language and customs of the next place they were to visit, rather than concentrating only on the flora of the region. She was a writer by trade and excelled at quickly picking up nearly any foreign tongue. She cleared her throat. “He was. He speaks some kind of Romanian dialect which I’m not too fluent in, honestly, but I think he was saying something about the devil, ‘the devil lives here’ or something like that. These people are very superstitious.”

          “Well so am I,” Mary replied.

          “Do you actually believe that the Devil himself might happen to make his home around here?” Her mother asked, obviously intending the question to be rhetorical.

          “No, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything to be afraid of. How do we know he meant that literally? Maybe he knows that a murderer is on the loose in this area. Or a pack of rabid animals. There’s a lot of different things he could have meant by that.”

          “Most likely he’s talking about evil spirits or ghosts. There are a lot of legends about that sort of thing in these parts.”

          As if on cue, Mary glanced out the window to see an abandoned cemetery just beyond the path. Toppled and broken tombstones were scattered around the mossy forest floor and strewn among giant tree roots. A thin mist hung just above the ground. It was a spooky scene even in the dappled, midday sunlight. Beyond the graveyard, the ruins of an ancient chapel loomed in the shadows. The building appeared to have been destroyed by a fire at some point in the distant past. Most of the roof was missing and black scorch marks streamed upwards from the windows and marred what was left of the crumbling walls. She looked back at her mother and motioned over her shoulder at it. Her mother nodded in confirmation.

          “We have to live near _that?”_ Mary grumbled, raising an eyebrow.

          “We aren’t stopping yet,” her mother replied rather smugly.

          Fair enough. They continued past the graveyard, farther and farther into the forest. Mary felt a little less anxious knowing they weren’t going to be camped out next to a flock of decaying corpses. Still, she felt a lot of sympathy for the driver. Such things scared her as well, and she wished there was some way she could convey her understanding so he’d know he wasn’t alone in his fear. Who was to say there weren’t such things as ghosts and evil spirits? No one knew for sure. Perhaps it was more foolish _not_ to believe in such things.

          Another half-hour had passed before the road, which had dwindled to nothing more than two intermittent and nearly invisible ruts, finally trailed off, leaving them unable to continue by coach. Climbing out, Mary took in her new surroundings. It was the standard scene -- trees as far as the eye could see on all sides. Conifers and deciduous trees and moss and probably all manner of nasty vermin, with no sign of shelter or even a footpath to follow.

          The driver leapt down and began snatching their baggage from the roof and essentially flinging it all to the ground in his panicked rush to leave the area. Mary had hoped to catch his eye so she could at least give him a sympathetic smile, but he grabbed his pay from her father’s fingers, pulled himself back onto his seat, and after seizing the reins, careened away so rapidly she felt certain she would see the whole carriage topple over before it vanished down the trail, leaving them alone in the forest.

          “Is there a house for us around here someplace, or will we be sleeping rough this time?” Mary inquired somewhat facetiously.

          “There’s a house, Mary,” her father assured her, his voice tinged with impatience. “We just have to walk a ways to get to it.”

          “Oh? And who will be carrying our luggage? The wolves? Perhaps we should employ a dog-sled type of arrangement.”

          A stifled laugh escaped her mother at this suggestion. Her father wasn’t quite as amused.

          “Just get your bags,” he snapped. “We’ll have to come back for the rest.” He produced a map and a compass from his bag and then took a moment to orientate himself before marching off in a seemingly random direction.

          After shrugging at one another simultaneously, Mary and her mother proceeded to follow him, lugging as many suitcases as each of them could bear to carry. There was an unspoken worry between them that they might return to this spot to find that the rest of their things had sprouted legs. Or perhaps they wouldn’t be able to find their way back to the same spot at all, thus their possessions would sit unclaimed until they disintegrated into dust like the poor souls in that decrepit cemetery they’d passed on their way.

          The forest floor was littered not only with the usual fallen leaves, tree roots, and fallen limbs, but also large stone formations of various shapes and sizes. These remnants were ancient and bore the signs of centuries of weathering, but they retained enough definition to indicate that they were manmade rather than formed by natural processes. Mary wondered what the structures had been, and how they had come to lie in ruins so long ago.

          Trudging along the rocky, uneven forest floor with twenty pounds of luggage on their backs wasn’t exactly enjoyable, and they were all quite relieved when they finally spotted the medieval-looking, wood-framed stone cottage that would be their home for the next several months.

          The first thing Mary noticed upon entering the cottage was the fact that for seeming quite shabby and unkempt from the outside, the inside was remarkably tidy and well furnished.


End file.
